I do not own the above image. Copyright Saban Entertainment. All Rights Reserved.
An
afternoon children’s institution for almost a quarter century, the Mighty
Morphin’ Power Rangers have returned to the big screen after two decades and
they are wiping the slate clean. Five
teenagers in Angel Grove become defenders of the universe against the evil Rita
Repulsa under the guidance of Zordon, a former Ranger stuck inside the Grid of
the home ship. As cheesy & goofy the
show was back in the day, this new iteration tries to combine some the fun of
the original show with a few more gritty elements of the modern world. But Power Rangers is nothing more than Millennial
Nostalgia Syndrome run amok.
Dean
Israelite (Project Almanac) directs this like it’s his entry in the “So You
Wanna Direct Transformers?” contest.
Every shot is either an extreme close-up or a wide shot with a Dutch
angle. You could count with one hand the
number of times the camera stood still for a majority of the shot. The camera spun so fast in a travelling car
in the opening that I needed to close my eyes to keep from getting motion
sickness. The final battle features too
many shots of CGI creatures on the side of the frame. It always fascinates me when $105 million was
spent on a movie and the filmmakers don’t want to show what they spent it on. Israelite & cinematographer Matthew J
Lloyd (Netflix’s Daredevil) create an atmosphere that keeps Power Rangers from
being coherent. Too much of the film,
especially early on, is shot at night & is poorly lit, making much of the
movie (literally) unwatchable.
The design
of all the supposedly-iconic costumes & vehicles is hideous. Everything has the same basic color scheme:
dark gray on black. The ship looks like
if a 1950s alien designed the Batcave.
It’s worst feature is Zordon himself, who looks like a giant Pin Art 3D attached
to the wall like a flat screen television.
That sounds cool but he’s filmed with camera up his nose and your focus
is on the individual pin closest to the camera & not the whole face. The suits & the Zords share the same
fatal flaw: the primary color of the Ranger character is not of the primary
color of their costume. In the scene
where the Rangers do their clichéd, slo-mo, introductory walk towards the
camera in the ship, you cannot tell which Ranger is which. The same thing happens when the Rangers or
their mechanical creatures fly across the screen in the fight scene. The reason is that the majority of each suit
is dark grey instead of the primary color of each Ranger. In addition, each Ranger’s primary color
appears to be faded or mixed with black. If you're colorblind, you're f*cked. Combine that with the poorly designed henchmen called Puddies, the
hand-to-hand fight is a mammoth mess with the light gray fighting dark gray on black rock.
As for the
teenage Rangers, we have Jason Scott (Montgomery), the disgraced star
quarterback, Kimberly Hart (Scott), a pariah cheerleader, Billy Cranston
(Cyler) an African-American genius on the autism spectrum and Zack (Lin) &
Trini (Becky G), two social & ethnical outsiders. Within five seconds of meeting Kim &
Billy, we fall for them as interesting characters thanks to the actors. Naomi Scott has the kind of face the camera
loves and she has the chops to love it back.
If there is anyone of the main five who will breakout, it’s RJ Cyler who
plays Billy with the perfect blend of intelligence & awkwardness that adds
the slightest bit of reality to the proceedings. Dacre Montgomery is given the meaty, lead
role that has the complexity to him but the young actor lacks the portfolio of
facial expressions to convey the necessary emotions. This actor was obviously cast not because of
his talent but for his resemblance to Zac Efron.
By the time
we get a chance to know the final two Power Rangers, the movie has already ran
about 40 minutes so they, a young Asian man & a young Latina, are kept in
the background. We do learn that Zack
comes from a broken home & has a sick mother and is somewhat
developed. As far as Trini goes, we know
she’s an outcast at school & home because she may or may not be a lesbian
and…that’s about it. We don’t even know
her name until the 50 minute mark. Ludi
Lin is fine as Zack but Becky G should stick to her day job as a singer. Every line she says is rushed & in one
bland tone as if she wants to get away from the camera as quickly as possible.
But the bad
characters don’t end there. Rita Repulsa
takes way too long developing into her & her creature’s final form that
there’s nothing we discover about her outside of her desire to get revenge
& take over the world. Elizabeth
Banks is usually very reliable but Meryl Streep circa 1984 couldn’t make Rita work. Zordon should have been a mystical
teacher for the team but, to be brutally honest, he’s an asshole. Zordon hates the idea of being the spirit in
the wall so he devises a plan to come back as one of the Rangers. And he almost gets away with it but has a
moment of unearned humility & accepts his destiny.
There is
also an element of the third act that belongs in the Product Placement Hall of
Shame next to the McDonald’s scene in Mac & Me. Never in the history of cinema or mankind has
the location of a Krispy Kreme been so integral to human existence. It’s moments like that that destroy anything
the script that screenwriter John Gatins (Real Steel, Kong: Skull Island) was trying to
accomplish in between the callbacks to the TV series. It’s an aggressively silly moment that makes
it appear that the whole movie wants to be a joke but with all the teen angst
thrown about in the first two acts, the tone is out of control.
Power
Rangers is Michael Bay-lite, which is still too much of a bad thing. It’s a movie that is too loud, too frenetic,
too confused, too effects-heavy and too nostalgia-focused to be anything
worth your attention. Sure, there are
three heroes that are engaging enough but their two ethnic minority
counterparts are left in the background and a villain on another planet. Power Rangers is nothing more than a giant
Krispy Kreme doughnut: filling & full of sugar enough for a small burst of
energy but full of regret in retrospect.
*
